Thursday, June 26, 2008

Islamic intolerance

The islamists are driven by only one aim, to establish their supremacy over the world. Islam is their only consideration and the ulema their only guide. Anyone who has ever argued with Isamists will realise how futile is it to rationalize with them. Any attempt to reason, question or bring about a change is strongly quelled by the ulema. According to them, anyone who is a non-muslim, anyone who does not believe in their prophet and the Quran is a kafir and that everything that such a person does is kufr. Everything else (the law of the land, the majority religions in the land etc.) means little to them. Indeed any change or innvoation in their interpretation of Islam is kufr. The Islamic apologists fail to realize that thay are only being used by the Islamists and they will never be considered on par with the Muslims. Arun Shourie's book, "The World of Fatwas or The Shariah in Action" tries to understand the Muslim rationale. It is a wonderful book and gives us an idea on how the Muslim mind works.

With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that the Muslim leaders behave the way they do and the thoughts they harbor. However, what is more astonishing is that our leaders (Mulayan, Laloo, Manmohan et. al.) are completely blinded by their concern for the Muslim vote. Completely ignoring their obligations, duties towards the nation. They seem to think, their only duty is to cater to the Muslims.

The Muslim population in India is substantial enough to have a voice (a very strong one). It is now well over 10 %. In fact it is now 13.4%. As their numbers increased over the years so has their intolerance. Our leaders bend all the way backwards to pander to them, listen to their every demand and even go the extent of putting them ahead of everyone else and the nation.

Recently a 1,200 sq. ft. piece of land in Kolkata, which happens to be a mosque where barely 30 people offer prayers, cost the government thousands of crores. The tax payers money has no consideration but the voice and sentiments of the Muslims does.

On the other hand, when the government in Jammu and Kashmir donates land to a Hindu shrine, the Muslims in the state go on a rampage. They allege that this would promote Hinduism and Hindu settlement in the area. The protests went even further with Anti-India slogans. "Down with India," and "We want freedom!" were the chants. And when you call such people anti-Indians or ask them to prove their loyalty, you are snubbed and called racist. That's secularism!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Manmohan ain't gonna resign

Throughout his professional life, Manmohan has only contemplated resigning, but never actually did.

He thought of stepping down when he was the deputy chairman of the planning commission. And the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi called the commission "a bunch of jokers". When the securities scam surfaced, Manmohan thought of resigning again. He challenged the Left to withdraw support over the Indo-US nuclear deal earlier. And now the farce continues with his latest threat.

Manmohan ain't going nowhere. He's too obedient a babu to not follow his master's commands.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Environment consciousness and America...

...are poles apart. All the outwardly concern for the environment, by the American politicians, is empty rhetoric when juxtaposed with their policies.
Bush seems to believe that India and China are equally guilty of polluting the environment as the Americans. We have proven that bunk in the previous posts. Further, the American policies actually favor the inefficient and polluting.
The US is a country of automobiles. The cars there are highly inefficient and burn a lot of gas. The mileage efficiency mandate has remained stagnant since the early seventies. As a result the average mileage of today's cars in the US is the same as it was in the seventies. Surely there have been advancements in technology which could be put to use in increasing the mileage on a car.
In the mid nineties, electric cars began to appear on American roads. These cars were quickly becoming popular and were actually better than the gas burning cars. They were threatening to kill the gasoline burning ones. The electric cars were being offered to the people to meet the California Air Resources Board (CARB) mandates to reduce emissions in the state. However the oil lobby felt threatened and began a counter attack on the electric car programs. It bought out the CARB, the car companies argued that it was impossible to meet the emission mandates prompting the CARB to relax them and in effect killing the future of electric cars. This attack on the zero emission electric cars had the backing of the federal government under Bush, not surprising knowing his oil connections. To completely kill the electric car program, Bush announced investment in fuel cell technology which we all know is not viable. The fuel cell technology is four times as inefficient as the electric cars. The documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" discusses this pretty well.
When there is still a lot of money to be made on oil, until it runs out, the oil lobby will continue to squash all alternative developments that threaten it. And the American politicians are equally involved in this. Until the American leaders continue to do this, they are not going to sound credible at all. Bring back the electric car; it is the best thing to do. Kick the oil habit.
Related Posts:

Friday, June 13, 2008

Bush's lip service on climate change

In my earlier post, I had discussed how USA is the most polluting country. The Americans are a small percentage of world population, yet the amount of carbon dioxide they contribute to the environment is greater than any other country. They are miles ahead at this. Yet the Americans go ahead & kill a bill that would restrict carbon emmisions.

The senate is bought over by the oil lobby & Bush himself has strong connections to them. The connections are so strong that he had pledged to veto the bill even if the senate were to pass it.

So addicted are the Americans to oil that kicking this habit is proving difficult. The electorate will be unforgiving to anyone trying to restrict the Americans from burning oil. The environment be damned!

Related Posts:
Climate change can't happen without the US
America needs oil

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Indo-US nuclear deal dying

An assertion to this effect by an US official is welcome because the deal in it's current form is absolutely against India's interests. The deal, if needed, should be re-negotiated to keep our national interests at the fore.
Dr. Singh's assurances to the parliament that the present deal does not compromise India's interests are pure bunk. He repeatedly assured us that our concerns have been adressed by the Americans, but when the 123 agreement, the Hyde Act & various other documents came out, it turns out that not only were there a plethora of clauses severly restricting us, there were "fall-back" safeguards that the Americans put in, so there was no way out for us from this mess of a deal. The clauses did not stop at restricting us, they went ahead to seek intrusions in our nuclear programme. Our scientiests have expressed this as a grave concern.
It's surprising how gullible could our leaders be. The only defense they offer is that the various American acts around this deal do not apply to us. They forget that all those acts apply to the American president & their senate. How do you get around that? Dr. Singh also assures us that most of the specific clauses will not be applicable or enforced on us. But such assurances are not spelt out in the legal documents. Dr. Singh seems to have full faith in the private assurances of the American diplomats. To sign a deal, that runs counter to our national interest & believe verbal assurances made in private is a monumentally folly. Dr. Singh should resist his craving to be in the good books of the Americans & not compromise or interests. He is India's leader, not America's.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Congress not with the "aam aadmi"

"Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath" - that slogan is proven false when you read this. For all it's pro-aam aadmi proclamations, most of the Congress ruled states are behind the BJP ruled states in implementing NREGS (a Congress brain child). Which also indicates the amount of corruption in the Congress. Where does all the money meant for the poor go is not exactly a secret now.

Congress cares for the "aam aadmi" only during the elections (not a new discovery BTW).

Climate change can't happen without the US

Bush says climate change can't happen without India & China. Let's see if that is true.

This graph here shows that the CO2 emissions by country. Notice that the two most polluting countries are China & USA. India is miles below in the graph. So, to bring about a significant change in the environment, China & USA must change their polluting habits. And since the Americans claim they are the world leaders, why not take the lead here? Why pull India's name into the equation? Even if India were to change it's habit, it is not going to make any significant impact (this doesn't mean we continue polluting). The onus lies on the Americans & the Chinese.

The Americans are the most polluting ones. Consider this, just 300 million Americans manage to burn 25% of the world's oil. And they produce 4.5 pounds of soild waste each day. More than folks from most countries. Not to forget their phenominal food consumption.

America's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is another indication of their unwillingness to change their wasteful ways. It is also the receipient of the most polluting country award (along with two others) handed out by the UN (where it has immense clout). In face of all this, it doesn't sound too credible of the Americans asking us to bring about climate change. The US must own up and change it's polluting habits first.

Monday, June 2, 2008

The UPA's next casualty

The UPA's next casualty is the national highways. And when the minister responsible is T. R. Baalu, what else would you expect. While Baalu went out of his way to secure cheap gas for his progeny, he very well made sure that the highways suffered. Here's a report. A few excerpts follow -

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has posted a
56 per cent project completion rate across all phases of the NHDP in 2007-08 in
terms of completion of projects —
the lowest
since the UPA came to power and Union Minister T R Baalu came to head the
Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways.
(emphasis added)

The slide in progress has been continual -

Project completion rate was 81 per cent in 2004-05, 78 per
cent in 2006-07, 73 per cent in 2005-06 and is now down to 56 per cent.

(for the current year)

Interestingly expenditure has not dropped in the same proportion -
NHAI spent Rs 15,639 crore on NHDP in
2007-08 — 89 per cent of what was allocated — and has been fairly close to the
expenditure target in the last four years.
Where did all the money go if the roads didn't get done? But accountability is not something the UPA believes in.